The Poisoned Crown (51 page)

“He doesn’t know about it,” Hazel said. “I never told him. How do you—”

“How do
you
know about it?” Annie interjected.

“The Scarbarrow is … likely,” Bartlemy said, leaving explanations for later. “I only wish we knew where it was. There are no barrows ’round here.”

“Scarbarrow.” Pobjoy latched on to the problem as something comprehensible, something he could analyze like a policeman. “I’ve never heard of it. That would be a barrow—with a scar? What exactly does that mean?”

“Some sort of mark, I imagine,” Bartlemy said. “Cut into the ground, perhaps.”

“Like the Long Man at Wilmington or the device on Chizzledown?”

“Could be. Yes, it could be. Chizzledown is near enough. No barrow that I know of, but—”

“Those Wicca nutters use it sometimes,” Pobjoy said. “We’ve had complaints. Dancing ’round the hilltop in the nude and so on. They usually prefer midsummer—bit chilly in March. We rounded up a group of them last year, out of their tiny skulls on homegrown dope. They said the place exudes ‘strong magical vibrations.’ I’m not surprised, after what they’d taken.”

“It
could
be Chizzledown,” Hazel said, temporarily suspending hostility. “But Nathan wouldn’t do any of that Wicca rubbish. Come on—let’s go—”

“What about the Grandir?” Annie said. “Where’s he in all this?
He’s
the one who has to do the Great Spell—isn’t he?—and he’s on Eos. I’m not running off anywhere unless—until I’m sure. A scar could mean all sorts of things.” She was talking with the wobbly determination of someone hanging on to her self-control by a single weak thread, fighting to stay rational in the face of a rising tide of insanity.

Bartlemy said: “It would be folly to chase after shadows. We need definite information.”

“But if Nathan’s in danger—!” Hazel protested.

“We don’t know that for certain. The Grandir has always protected him.”

“After what Margolaine told us—”

“Who’s Margolaine?” Annie demanded.

“What makes you think Nathan is in
danger?”
Pobjoy interrupted, at his most inspectorial.

“Why—”

“How—”

“Who—”

“Shut up.”
Bartlemy raised his voice, an event so rare the others fell silent out of sheer astonishment. “Now, let’s sort out what we know.
Tonight is the Solstice—a suitable night for high magic. The Scarbar-row is the obvious location for the portal in this world. Nathan has set off on foot, with the Three, possibly toward Chizzledown—that’s worth noting—which may be the modern name for it. The two names are clearly very similar. But the Grandir—the spellcaster—is on Eos, and Nathan doesn’t have the skill or the power to attempt any magic by himself. However, what he
can
do—in extremis—is bring someone here with him. He did it with Eric, to save him from drowning. It occurs to me he might—
might
—have brought the Grandir to
this
world, so he can complete the Great Spell here. That would explain why Nathan was walking, not sleeping, when he left the house.”

“The Grandir …” Annie’s words came slowly. “In …
this …
world …”

“It’s possible,” Bartlemy averred.

“Then we must go
now,”
Hazel said. “We’ll try Chizzledown first, then—then anywhere else that’s likely …”

“There’s another way,” Bartlemy said. “Try to think like a witch for a change, instead of a frightened girl. We don’t need to go looking for Nathan; we can bring him to us.”

Annie said: “I don’t understand.”

“We draw the circle,” Bartlemy explained, “and we summon him.”

“But… he’s
a person,”
Hazel said. “Can we do that with a person?”

“Of course we can, provided the magic is strong enough. He would normally return to wherever he’s called
from
when the summons is over, but it is possible to draw him out of the circle and hold him here. It can be a traumatic process, but Nathan is well accustomed to—er— unnatural transportation: it shouldn’t affect him.”

He was rolling back the carpet as he spoke, unhurried but brisk.

Hazel said: “Shall I do it?”

“Not this time.”

Shortly after, Pobjoy said to Annie, sotto voce: “Is this some sort of séance?”

“Not exactly.”

The lights were out. The circle glimmered in the dark of the room. There was a fire smoldering in the background, but external sounds
and distractions faded away. Bartlemy’s voice reciting the incantation was both mesmeric and strangely soothing; Pobjoy found himself wondering if this was some form of hypnosis. In his teens and early twenties, he had been a heavy smoker and had once tried a hypnotist as a means of giving it up, but he had been told he was a poor subject, one of those people on whom hypnotism does not work, and he’d had to fall back on willpower. He waited with a sort of brittle detachment, speculating about what he had gotten himself into, what kind of grotesque con game Bartlemy was running. He hadn’t seemed the type at all, but that was the thing about the best con men: not seeming the type was part of their stock-in-trade.

Then he saw there was someone in the circle.

The figure had come from nowhere, he was sure of it. A phantom figure that seemed to be made from smoke, its lineaments melting and changing against the suggestion of a skull. It wore a red veil, which it had pulled back to show the face; there was no other color about it at all.

He heard Hazel’s hissing whisper: “What are you
doing?”

“If Nathan and the Grandir are in
this
world,” Bartlemy said, “the spells can see them. Greeting, Ragnlech.”

“This is the hour of Doom,” said the seeress, and something about her voice—the blended voices of the sisterhood—caught Pobjoy off guard, pressing long-forgotten buttons in his nervous system. He had been telling himself it must be a hologram, though he had noticed no sophisticated equipment anywhere in the house, but the voice was shockingly real. It seemed to come from the floor, or the walls, or the air itself.

A clever recording of some kind …?

“I have no leisure for conversation with mortals. Release me!”

“Use the Eye,” Bartlemy said.

“Time is running out. We are watching. That is our allotted task. We are watching for the end of the world.”

“When will that be?”

“About midnight,” said the seeress.

Hazel said “Fuck!” and then apologized hastily.

“What about Nathan?” Annie cut in. “Can you see my son?”

“I can only answer the Questioner,” the seeress responded, and Pobjoy knew it couldn’t be a recording; Annie’s interruption was outside the script.

“Use the Eye,” Bartlemy said. “I need your Sight.”

Pobjoy saw the figure lift a small spherical object, like a marble, and place it in one empty eye socket. Unlike the rest of her, it looked solid, a milky globe with fine veining and the circles of iris and pupil marked on the side. Once fixed, it began to glow with an unhealthy radiance.

Pobjoy thought:
This is real. They can do special effects on film, but not in your living room. Not like this.

This is happening …

Bartlemy said: “Can you see the boy Nathan?”

“There are barriers … One is there who will not be watched. The circle was drawn long ago … soon, it will burn. The spells are brewing … a Great Spell to shatter the worlds … This is the night of Doom.”

“We knew that,” said Bartlemy.

“Is it Chizzledown?” Hazel demanded. “Uncle Barty, ask her—”

“Tell me where this will take place,” Bartlemy said.

“The Scarbarrow … Once, it was the door to Faerie, but now … He will not be watched! He has power—such power—power beyond measure, beyond any spirit in this world—” The Eye began to throb, expanding and shrinking to the rhythm of a heartbeat. The veins spread like cracks in the marble. “It is too much—too much power! Sisters, hold to me! We must—hold—No!
No!”

Something like a lightning flash stabbed the core of the circle—the seeress screamed with a dozen voices—

Then there was nothing. The circle was empty. A wisp of smoke— ordinary smoke, without form or substance—drifted upward. There was a smell of scorching.

“What the hell—”

“What happened?”

“What—”

Bartlemy said slowly: “That was
not
on the agenda. I fear—”

“Is she dead?” Pobjoy asked, conscious the question sounded naive.

“She is werefolk,” Bartlemy said. “Strictly speaking, she was never alive. However—”

“Dead or alive, she’s cooked,” Hazel said brutally. “You said you would call Nathan.”

“Annie?”

“Please …”

Bartlemy repeated the incantation. Pobjoy heard Nathan’s name, among echoes of other, faintly familiar words, perhaps French or Spanish, a hint of Arabic, a rumor of Russian or Greek. England is a cosmopolitan country and he had heard many languages over the years, but never one quite like this—a language as lyrical as poetry, as sharp as a blade.

Again, Bartlemy called Nathan by name. But the circle was dark and empty.

“Why doesn’t he come?” Hazel said. “He isn’t—he isn’t—”

“I don’t know. If he lives—if he is in this world—he
must
answer.” Pobjoy felt Annie’s hand gripping his arm, her fingers pinching his flesh through shirt and sweater. “But the Grandir clearly has a Gift far exceeding mine. He may be blocking me in some way.”

Pobjoy said:
“Who is the Grandir?”

“A power-crazed supervillain”—from Hazel.

And Annie: “Nathan’s father—”

His
father?
Pobjoy stared—glared—tried to understand.

“There’s something else I can try,” Bartlemy said, “though it may not work. I could summon the
place …
If it has a strong magical identity—what used to be called a genius loci—”

“How can you summon a place?” Hazel said. “That’s impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible. There would be a—connection, an instant when
there
and
here
overlap. We might be able to see—”

“Try,” Annie said.

This time the summons was slightly different. Pobjoy heard both
Chizzledown
and
Scarbarrow
in the rhythm of the chant. For a couple of minutes there was no change. And then … the circle didn’t actually
expand, but suddenly there seemed to be a lot more space inside it—a breath of cold air off the open hillside—a piping call like the cry of a night bird. Chalk cuts showed faintly against a dimness of grass—an arc, bisected by a straight line … Within the circle, the hillside turned. Something was huddled on the ground—something they couldn’t make out—and above it stood a man. They saw him for only an instant, but he was tall, taller than any ordinary human, dressed in white though his face was dark, and his eyes glowed, not like the eyes of a demon but like the eyes of an archangel… He saw the spellring, the Questioner, the watchers beyond … He made a tiny gesture, spoke a single word.

The circle exploded.

“I
CAN’T
do it,” Nathan said.

There was a silence on the hilltop, a night silence, breathless with the hush of the wind.

“You must,” said the Grandir. “The choices have all been made.”

“You chose,” Nathan said. “Not me.”

“With power comes responsibility. It is my fate to choose.”

“You said … billions of people will die, whole civilizations—”

“You do not care about them,” the Grandir said. “Your soul is not large enough. Earthfolk care only about those who are closest to them.”

“Maybe that’s true.” Nathan wanted to express his doubts, to argue and out-argue—but no one could argue with the Grandir. It was like picking a quarrel with God. “Maybe I don’t care. But I know it’s wrong.”

Almost
, the Grandir sighed. “Your notions of right and wrong are so parochial. You must take a wider view. I will bring progress, harmony, order, not just to your planet but to the whole cosmos. And how can it be
right
, even by your standards, for my people to die? We have so much to give—so much wisdom, so much knowledge and skill.”

“Who made the Contamination?”

The question hung in the air for a second like a raindrop suspended halfway to the ground.

“My father,” the Grandir said at last. “There was a group of star systems who wished to secede from the Cosmic League—to destroy the unity my ancestors had built up over the ages. When their petition was refused, extremists among them resorted to violence. There were atrocities—innocent people were deliberately targeted—an entire planet was blown up. They used thaumotechnology, but my father came up with a way to distort the magical field around their power bases, so their spells would work against them. It was the fallout from this process that became the Contamination. At first he thought it could be contained within a single galaxy—the zone where the terrorists were operating. But we had learned to travel at thoughtspeed, which is far faster than light—a form of movement powered by magic—and so the Contamination was spread. My father tried to put a moratorium on such travel, except by the elite, but it proved impossible to enforce. When I succeeded him, I took sterner measures, and for several millennia the problem appeared to be under control, confined to a region we were able to keep in isolation. But it grew, advancing wherever magic was used, and in the last thousand years it has eaten up the universe.”

“Your people destroyed their own world,” Nathan said. “That doesn’t—that shouldn’t give them the right to take mine.”

“Your
people are destroying their own planet,” the Grandir pointed out. “They know how to stop it, yet their elected rulers take no action. Destruction is the nature of humankind. We at least have learned from our mistakes. The lesson has been long and bitter; we would teach others to walk a different path. Don’t you want that?”

“We have to—make our own mistakes.” Nathan fumbled with ideas imperfectly thought out. “People have to—to work things out for themselves. Choose for themselves.”

“Even if that means extinction?”

“Your people chose extinction,” Nathan said. “Mine—might not.”

“Argument is fruitless,” the Grandir said. “You have your mother’s genes—you were born in this world—in the end, your vision is too small to see as I do. You cling to your backward ethics like a child with a favorite toy. But it is time to be done with toys. You talk of choice, but your choices were made for you, eons before you were born. I am
sorry—sorrier than I can say—that things between us must end in discord. I have planned for this moment so long, I and all my ancestors since Romandos’s day. I did not know it would cost me so dear.”